A. Kormuťák

Polymer Institute SAS

Pollen viability, its dispersion ability and longevity during a deep-freezer storage was studied in three Juniperus taxa naturally distributed in Slovakia. All these characteristics of pollen are closely related to the pollination and/or fertilization success of the junipers in nature. Pollen viability varied considerably between the three populati...

Citation: Alizoti, P.; Bastien, J.-C.; Chakraborty, D.; Klisz, M.M.; Kroon, J.; Neophytou, C.; Schueler, S.; van Loo, M.; Westergren, M.; Konnert, M.; et al. Non-Native Forest Tree Species in Europe: The Question of Seed Origin in Afforestation. Forests 2022, 13, 273.

The genetic structures of the four putative hybrid swarms of Pinus sylvestris × P. mugo in Slovakia were analyzed in terms of individual admixture proportions calculated via inter-primer binding site (iPBS) marker loci. This work aimed to reevaluate the hybrid swarms’ differentiation status as postulated in the previous studies at both population a...

For non-native tree species with an origin outside of Europe a detailed compilation of enemy species including the severity of their attack is lacking up to now. We collected information on native and non-native species attacking non-native trees, i.e. type, extent and time of first observation of damage for 23 important non-native trees in 27 Euro...

Pollen storage belongs among the most important activities associated with pollen handling. It overcomes the differences in pollen shedding and ovule receptivity during controlled pollination experiments. It is especially important for species like common juniper (Juniperus communis L.) with an extremely low quality of seeds due to pollination fail...

The crossability relationship between Scots pine ( Pinus sylvestris L.) and mountain dwarf pine ( Pinus mugo Turra) was tested under field conditions using an artificial pollination approach. There was partial compatibility between the parental species, as evidenced by the amount of filled seeds in their reciprocal crossings and in control variants...

Specific activity dynamics and isozyme composition of antioxidant enzymes ascorbate peroxidase (APX), catalase (CAT) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) were followed during the vegetation period in the young needles of Pinus mugo Turra, P. sylvestris L. and their putative hybrids. Tested enzymes differed in their dynamics showing the highest APX and CA...

Generally acknowledged reduction of the interspecific hybrid fertility was utilized in evaluation of the putative hybrid swarms of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) and mountain dwarf pine (P. mugo Turra) viability under field conditions. Pollen viability and seed quality of the trees from the four contact zones of P. syl­vestris and P. mugo in Slov...

The opposite modes of chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) inheritance were found to operate in the reciprocal crossings of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) and mountain dwarf pine (Pinus mugo Turra). The crossings were found to be partially compatible. In P. sylvestris × P. mugo crossing, the paternal transmission of cpDNA to the offspring takes place corrobor...

Crossability relationships between Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) and mountain dwarf pine (Pinus mugo Turra) was studied, using artificial pollination approach. Partial compatibility of the reciprocal crossings of these species was proved experimentally, validating the idea of a spontaneous formation of their hybrid swarms under natural condition...

Genetic structure of the mountain dwarf pine (Pinus mugo) and Scots pine (P. sylvestris) natural populations along with their 4 putative hybrid swarms in Slovakia were analyzed using 12 enzyme loci. The study aimed in evaluation of postulated hybrid status of the swarms on molecular level. Based on semidiagnostic allele frequencies of the MDH B, MD...

The height growth dynamics of three interspecific crosses with Greek fir (Abies cephalonica Loud.) acting as mother and a control variant from self-pollination were followed throughout a period of 30 years. The hybrid combination A. cephalonica x A. nordmanniana exhibited enhanced growth relative to the selfed control at stage of 4-year old seedlin...

Gene flow among individual trees of Pinus syluestris and P. mugo putative hybrid swarms in Slovakia was followed at four localities using the species-diagnostic cpDNA trnV-trnH/Hinf I restriction profile. Variable proportions of P. syluestris and P. mugo haplotypes were revealed among the sampled localities. Low between-habitus consistency of the t...

This paper provides results of somatic embryogenesis study in our laboratory. General description of somatic embryogenesis (SE) induction, maturation of somatic embryos and plantlets regeneration of the Abies species, followed by a comparisons of some characteristics of zygotic and somatic embryos, seedlings and emblings (somatic seedlings). Own re...

Crossability relationships between six species of the Mediterranean, North American and Asian firs was tested using Abies alba and A. nordmanniana as female parents and A. alba, A. numidica, A. procera, A. grandis, and A. holophylla as pollen parents. An overwhelming majority of the crosses attempted was found to be compatible. In particular, it is...

We used artificial hybridization to study the crossability of the noble fir (Abies procera) with Manchurian fir (A. holophylla) and Caucasian fir (A. nordmanniana), and found compatibility between A. procera of North American origin and the Asian species A. holophylla as evidenced by the 14% fraction of filled seeds obtained in A. procera × A. holo...

The European black pine (Pinus nigra Arn.) is one of the Slovakian pines involved in somatic embryogenesis study and belongs, taxonomically, to he section Pinus of the subgenus Diploxylon (Little & Critchfield, 1969). However, in spite of a common occurrence within the subsection Sylvestris, the species was shown to be sexually incompatible with th...

Comparative study on cone size has been done involving four populations of the putative hybrid swarms of Pinus sylvestris × P. mugo in northern Slovakia and three control populations of the parental species of P. sylvestris and P. mugo. The hybrid swarm populations were characterized by a reduced size of their cones compared to parental species. Th...

Genetic variation of two Pinus mugo Turra populations, one Pinus sylvestris population and four putative hybrid swarms of the species was studied using 12 polymorphic allozyme loci. In all populations studied the relatively high values of fixation indices were found. The causes of this phenomenon vary from population to population. The population o...

The effect of maturation pretreatment on development and growth of Abies numidica De Lann. somatic embryos was studied. The most beneficial was pre-culturing on Schenk and Hildebrandt medium without growth regulator for 2 weeks. Dry mass accumulation of emblings was lower than that of seedlings after 50 d of culturing. Contents of microelements in...

Pollen viability in three hybrid swarm populations of Pinus mugo × P. sylvestris and in control populations of P. mugo in northern Slovakia was studied throughout two successive years. Germination percentage and pollen tube length were used as the principal parameters of pollen viability. In 2007, a slight reduction of pollen germination was record...

Possibility to improve plantlet regeneration from Abies alba Mill. open-pollinated families of 4 trees in Dobroč primeval and 3 trees in managed forest was studied. Immature zygotic embryos were cultured in order to obtain initiation of embryogenic tissue. Totally, three from the families of the managed forest (57%) and two from the primeval famili...

Following historical data, localities Bratislava, Jelenec, Modrý Kameň have been considered the three main centers of chestnut distribution in Slovakia. To assess phenotypic and genetic differences among chestnut populations on these localities, randomly selected trees from these populations were subjected to morphometric analysis of 12 fruit trait...

Crop characteristics involving cone size, average number of seeds per cone, and seed germinability have been studied for three hybrid swarm populations of Pinus mugo and P. sylvestris, two pure P. mugo populations and one pure P. sylvestris population, in northern Slovakia. Generally, reproduction capability characteristics were significantly reduc...

Comparative study on fertilization process in Pinus sylvestris, Pinus mugo and in their putative hybrid swarm individuals was done involving pre-zygotic and post-zygotic stages. The amount of surviving ovules from open pollination reflecting the mode of interaction between pollen grains and nucellar tissue of an ovule averaged at 8.1 of sound ovule...

Artificial crossing experiments involving 3 Abies species native to Korean peninsula and 5 other representatives of Abies revealed a high hybridological affinity between Abies koreana and A. nephrolepis. Both these species are reproductively isolated from A. holophylla. All the three Korean species were found to exhibit incompatible relationships w...

Genetic structure of silver fir primeval forests was compared with that of the adjoining stands of the species using DNA and isozyme markers. At the DNA level, the proportion of cytotypes A and B generated by digestion of trnS-psbC flanking region of chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) with Hae III was shown to differ significantly between the primeval forest...

Molecular evidence for spontaneous hybridization between Pinus sylvestris L. and P. mugo Turra in the putative hybrid swarm populations of the species in Slovakia was provided based on PCR-RFLP analysis of the cpDNA trnV-trnH region. Species-specific restriction profiles generated by Hinf I digests of the cpDNA products reliably identified P. sylve...

Pollen viability was tested in two hybrid swarm populations of Pinus mugo and P. sylvestris in northern Slovakia and in control populations of the parental species. It was significantly reduced in hybrid populations, as evidenced by average germination percentages ranging from 49.0% and 61.53% and by pollen tube length averaging 74.54-86.47 μm. The...

Efficiency of the method for improving repetitive somatic embryogenesis and plant recovery of Algerian fir (Abies numidica De Lann.) was investigated by evaluating of induction frequency, maturation capacity and germination. Individual zygotic embryos differed only slightly in induction frequencies (6.8 %) from somatic embryos of the first (5.7 %)...

Composition and accumulation patterns of storage proteins in female gametophyte and embryos of the white fir (Abies concolor) were investigated during embryogenesis and germination of mature seeds using SDS-PAGE and immunological approach. Altogether 9 major and minor protein components with molecular masses of 14, 16, 22, 24, 27, 30, 35, 38, and 4...

Anther culture is currently the most successful method for production of doubled haploid lines in flax. Recently, ovary culture was also described as a good source of doubled haploids. In this contribution we investigated the incorporation of enzyme polymorphism of acid phosphatase and peroxidase as molecular markers for the gametic origin of flax...

Artificial hybridization experiments revealed a relatively high degree of crossability between Pinus sylvestris and P. mugo, ranging between 0.15 and 0.98. Differences between P. sylvestris x P. mugo and reciprocal hybrids of the species were observed. Hybrid seeds of P. sylvestris x P. mugo shared higher germination potential than seeds from selfi...

Using PCR-RFLP analysis, a comparative study on the restriction site polymorphism within 8 genes and regions of the Abies chloroplast DNA has been conducted covering 15 Asian, 6 North American and 7 Mediterranean species. A variable degree of divergence was observed among individual species of a given region as well as between geographical groups....

The induction of secondary somatic embryogenesis in Abies numidica De Lann. was achieved. Precotyledonary, cotyledonary, and desiccated cotyledonary embryos were used as explants. Cotyledonary embryos before desiccation were the most suitable. The most beneficial was induction medium Schenk and Hildebrandt (SH) with 1 mg dm−3 thidiazuron and 1000 m...

The paper reports a comparative study of storage protein synthesis and enzyme activity during zygotic and somatic embryogenesis of silver fir. The SDS-PAGE profiles of storage proteins in zygotic and somatic embryos were similar but not identical. Six storage protein fractions were detected in zygotic embryos, as compared with eleven fractions in s...

Somatic embryogenesis was initiated from immature zygotic embryos of Abies cilicica Carr. and its hybrid A. cilicica x A. nordmanniana. Schenk and Hildebrandt medium (SH) supplemented with 5 μM benzylaminopurine was used as the initiation medium. In A. cilicica, the initiation of embryonal suspensor mass (ESM) frequency ranged from 5.4 to 63.5%, an...

Maturation of Abies numidica De Lann. somatic embryos was tested on media with abseisic acid and various maltose and polyethylene glycol-4000 concentrations. The effect of basal medium and subculture period on maturation was also examined. The maturation of somatic embryos was promoted by polyethylene glycol-4000, at 7.5–10%. Three to 6% maltose si...

Crossability relationships between the North American species Abies concolor and five Mediterranean species of the genus Abies was analyzed using artificial hybridization approach. The species was proved to be reproductively isolated from the Mediterranean firs as evidenced by the incompatible nature of its crossings with A. alba, A. nordmanniana,...

The dependency of radicle elongation in Abies numidica somatic embryos on germination media has been studied. No significant differences were detected between the Murashige and Skoog (MS) and Schenk and Hildebrandt (SH) medium. The addition of 10 g dm-3 activated charcoal or 0.05 mg dm-3 indole-3-butyric acid (IBA) into both media had positive infl...

Peroxidase activity was monitored during somatic embryogenesis of white fir (Abies concolor Gord. et Glend) starting from a non-embryogenic callus. Results revealed profound differences between non-embryogenic and embryogenic calli with an elevated level of enzyme activity in non-embryogenic ones. Precotyledonary, early cotyledonary and late cotyle...

Height growth performance of 5-year old seedlings originating from selfing, controlled intraspecific and interspecific crossings of Abies alba, A. nordmanniana, A.cephalonica, A. numidica,A. pinsapo, A.concolor and A. grandis was compared. Some of the interspecific crosses attempted were found to exhibit somatic heterosis outgrowing the progenies o...

Embryogenic cultures were derived from immature zygotic embryos of Pinus nigra Arn. The zygotic embryos at the time of collection were at the precotyledonary stage of development. To stimulate the maturation of early somatic embryos, abscisic acid (ABA; 25 mg/l) combined with maltose (3, 6, 9%) were used. The maturation process appeared to be cell...

Comparative study on fertilization in self- and cross-pollinated ovules of silver fir (Abies alba MILL.) revealed the normal pattern of development in both pollination types until mature archegonia. Disintegration of these structures observed in aborting ovules from selfing has been paralleled by a persistence of dormant pollen grains at the top of...

The genus Abies is represented by more than 40 species widespread in North and Central America, Eurasia and North Africa. In Europe, out of 10 Abies species only Abies alba (silver fir) is widely distributed in the Central European mountains, Balkan, Apennines chain and in the Pyrenees while the others are distributed in small areas around the Medi...

 The ultrastructure of egg cells in Abies alba was examined to elucidate the lack of maternal inheritance of plastids. Before fertilization, maternal plastids are absent in the perinuclar zone containing mainly mitochondria and smooth endoplasmic reticulum. During egg cell development the maternal plastids are transformed into large inclusions whic...

The genetic study of Taiwan fir (Abies kawakamii (Hayata) Ito) was undertaken aiming to elucidate the genetic status of the species within the genus Abies, as well as to clarify the causes of extremely low quality of its seeds. At the level of chloroplast and genomic DNAs, the species exhibits the closest relationship with A. homolepis, both of whi...

Profound antigenic differentiation has been revealed between non-embryogenic and embryogenic callus lines of both Pinus nigra and Abies alba. The enriched spectrum of serologically active fractions has, as a rule, been characteristic for the non-embryogenic callus lines of both the above species. A small variation in the number of precipitin lines...

Comparative study on SDS-protein profiles and isoenzyme composition of non-embryogenic and embryogenic calli in two callus lines of silver fir (Abies alba Mill.) revealed the presence of abundant polypeptide fractions and an increased number of isoperoxidases in non-embryogenic calli. Non-specific esterase, on the other hand, exhibited an opposite...

Single pollen grains of Abies kawakamii and megagametophytes of Abies alba and A. kawakamii were investigated for a psbC chloroplast gene region. This region was amplified and digested with endonuclease Hae III. Two different restriction fragment patterns occurred corresponding to the 2 variants detected in previous investigations on needles and em...

Normal callus and embryogenic suspensor mass (ESM) were induced from the same immature embryo of Abies alba Mill. These two tissues were found to differ in their isoenzyme patterns of peroxidase, glutamate dehydrogenaseand non-specific esterase and in their requirement for myo-inositol inculture medium.

Normal callus culture and habituated embryogenic suspensor mass (ESM) of silver fir (Abies alba Mill.) were compared enzymatically using three enzyme systems. Significant reduction of peroxidase activity, more intensive glutamate dehydrogenase activity and higher number of isoenzymes of non‐specific esterase were found in habituated ESM as compared...

Embryogenic cultures were established from silver fir ( Abies alba Mill.) female megagamethophytes with developing embryos and from excised mature embryos after pollination with Abies cephalonica Lond. or Abies numidica DeLann pollen. The frequency of embryogenic callus formation was dependent on genotype, collection time, medium and explants used....

Embryogenic cultures were established from silver fir (Abies alba Mill.) female megagametliophytes with developing embryos and from excised mature embryos after pollination with Abies cephalonica Lond. or Abies numidica DeLann pollea The frequency of embryogenic callus formation was dependent on genotype, collection time, medium and explants used....

Somatic embryogenesis was initiated from immature zygotic embryos of intraspecific cross ofAbies alba and interspecific combination ofAbies alba x Abies nordmanniana. The most responsive explants for induction of embryogenic calli were zygotic embryos in precotyledonary stage of development. Biochemically the compared embryogenic lines were uniform...

Restriction fragment analysis of the chloroplast gene psbA was carried out in twelveAbies species native to Asia, Europe and North America using the four restriction enzymes. The pair of Asiatic representatives ofA. koreana andA. veitchii differed profoundly not only from each other but also with respect to the European and Northamerican species. T...

Hypocotyl and cotyledon explants of cucumber Cucumis sativus L. cv. Regina were subcultured on MS-medium supplemented with labelled and non-labelled nutrients and plant hormones /14C-sucrose, 14C-napthaleneacetic acid (NAA), 14C-benzyladenine (BA), 3H-abscisic acid (ABA)/ for 21 or 28 days followed by two additional days on basal medium /MS-hormone...

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The relict trees of silver fir (Abies alba Mill.) growing at the polluted locality Kamenec p. Vt. of the Vtačnik Mountain Range have been subjected to the comparative enzymological study aiming in description of the physiological aspects of silver fir declining in the area. There is not available any data concerning spatial distribution of peroxida...

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